Monday, 31 December 2012

A plea for positive cynicism. Oh, and a happy new year, too.

I spent the last 45
minutes looking for a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke. Shops around here, for some
reason, are loyal to Thums Up. Of course, to the average Badlapur resident, it
doesn't quite make a difference; especially tonight, as many people aren't that
pedantic about which soft drink they're going to mix their alcohol with – Thums
Up is the preferred one, I hear. No wonder.

Nevertheless,
my frantic, and not to mention pedantic, attempts led to one tiny shop which
did sell Coke. In Twitter lexicon, this warrants the hash-tag
#firstworldproblems. And now, as I stare at the half-empty glass, waiting for
some relatives to pop over, I'm contemplating the past year.

It's
been a tradition of sorts, for me, to write a cynical rant every New Year’s eve
for the last two years. The first time, I was alone at home, with no alcohol;
the year after, I had a little too much alcohol in me, and a lot of repugnance.
This time, right now, I mean, I'm sober. Very disillusioned, and undergoing
what may, in the jargon of social sciences, be termed as an epistemological
crisis. While the rest of the country's either preparing for a New year's party
(except the Indian Army. Such honourable fuckers, these guys are, I tell you)
or kicking up a big fuss about Honey Singh's party in some hotel in Gurgaon
that I can't remember.

You guessed it right,
this post is about the larger issue that has gripped the nation for the
last few weeks, at least: the question of violence against women – a quilted discourse,
pinned by the brutal gang-rape and murder of a 23-year old physiotherapy
student in Delhi. I was angry when I read about it, when I read about the sheer
brutality of the incident, and a host of other such incidents; I’m still angry,
frustrated even – which is one of the reasons why I haven’t been able to be my
usual cynical self in dismissing the protests in the aftermath; protests that
were met with an equal brutality meted out the Indian state, especially the
Delhi police. 2011 had seen protests too, led by the messianic figure of Anna
Hazare (who has, predictably, demanded death penalty for the rapists); heck,
there were cosmetic protests even in Bombay itself, just after the incident.
But when I saw people, who are very well my peers, in the tear gas-infested streets,
wet and beaten, I realised, like Sam Gamgee in The Two Towers, that there is good worth fighting for. Sure, I
disagree with the calls for castration and death penalties – these demands are
fascist; but so was the way in which their voices were brutally crushed by the
state.

Of
course, I’ve said the very same things before, and I wouldn’t want to bother
you with any more of it. But there’s one thing that has been rather
over-powering, something which is bothering me for quite some time now; the
cause, if you will, of my current epistemological crisis. My “presumed superior
knowledge and intelligence”, as someone succinctly pointed out, has failed me.
Another implied that I was “intellectually bankrupt”. Of course, I’m not taking
these claims seriously; I have that much faith in my training. But truth
remains, despite my intelligence, and my impressive bibliography (or so I like
to think), I feel utterly disillusioned; any intelligible comment (again, or so
I like to think) gets drowned in the din and clamour of popular discourse. Of
course, it’s a different thing that I, following the prolific and verbose Justice
Katju, consider most people to be idiots (unlike him, I’m sceptical of
numbers). Truth is, there is no intelligence in public discourse today: we’ve
got a media that manufactures conscience; a political class rooted in anti ideology,
hypocrisy, apathy; a public that is very good at making emphatic calls; and, of
course, Arnab Goswami, without whom, verily, our nation is doomed.

We’ve
witnessed a culture that displayed a morbid fascination with death – the vast (and
shameless, if you ask me) outpouring of eulogies after Thackeray’s death (I
mean, did you see/hear Arnab Goswami weep during Bal Thackeray’s funeral?), and
the celebration, literally so, after Kasab’s hanging. In other news, the fourth
anniversary of 26/11 was a dull affair; this time, surprisingly, they hadn’t barricaded
the memorial at VT (Kasab was hung days after this, actually).

So,
where am I going with this? Yes, I’m bitter, repugnant and cynical (and,
surprisingly, sober). Maybe, people commenting on my presumed intelligence and
intellectual bankruptcy are right. I have a friend who, of late, has been
bothered by the fact that I don’t have any clear political leanings. “You’re
not a capitalist, nor a socialist; neither are you right-wing, nor an atheist.
What…are you?” My answer usually involves complex sociological jargon which,
actually, doesn’t quite amount to anything substantial. But tonight, I think I
may have an answer for him. I am a positive cynic.

Partly,
because one of my friends on Twitter commented that no one else he knows really
lived up to their Twitter handle (something I found incredibly flattering;
thanks, Bob!). But mostly because positive cynicism, as an intellectual space,
really sums up my epistemological leanings: which is, well, disillusionment (that
also happens to be my current existential profile). By positive cynicism, I
mean a condition wherein I avoid both the naivety and radicalisation of political
views. Sure, I punch holes in people’s arguments, and alternatives, more so;
but that is an important job; a mission to civilize, as Will McAvoy of HBO’s The Newsroom put it. I’m not backing
away from taking political stances, either, mind you. If I think castrations
are not the answer, I believe I have sufficiently defended that stance. I’m not
in the vocation of giving solutions, either. My training in anthropology doesn’t
quite allow for that so easily. But I may be able to tell you where an
intervention would fail, and where it might succeed. You see, that’s the
brilliance of anthropology. That it’s rooted in a deeper problem, a constant
epistemological crisis; that it blends scepticism, analytical rigour,
scientific method, abstraction – all disparate elements, if you observe from
afar – so brilliantly. Yes, I’m disillusioned by the narrow confines of
traditional academia; but that’s changing now; the sociological imagination has
become more diverse, more analytical, more empirical. And that is something I
am looking to be a part of. That is where I see positive cynicism heading. A
critical sphere, akin to the Frankfurt School’s endeavours (apologies for the
umpteen references).

Ah,
well, I’ve said too much. And I’ve realised that this post isn’t nearly half as
repugnant and bitter as the previous two New Year’s eve ones. The relatives are
about to arrive soon and I’m on my second glass of Coke now. I think I need
something stronger. Alcohol does wonders for disillusionments, I’ve discovered.
Let’s see if it has the same effect on epistemological crises. The world didn’t
end, and we’re going to have to make do with this one. Oh, and before I forget,
happy New Year, and have a brilliant 2013 (#sarcasmintended).